"The income gap between the rich and the rest of the U.S. population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself," then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in 2005. WaPo
Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits Obama would set for the rest of us — today it's $250,000 for businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now officially "rich." The value of his physical and intellectual labor must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat (the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its own good and the greater good. The "hope" Obama represents, therefore, is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the individual. Mark Levin @ the Corner
Is the American Dream only about getting rich? Isn't it really about promoting a nation in which there is a flourishing, economically stable, culturally creative, technically innovative, self-reliant middle class? Why is it assumed that some upper limit on wealth acquisition is transgressive of some sacred American taboo? Prosperity, yes--and the more broadly dispersed the better. Concentrations of wealth, no. As Greenspan says, it threatens the "stability of American capitalism itself."
And isn't it true that the ideologically rigid laissez-faire capitalism Levin extols promotes the aggregation of wealth and power by the few, the destruction of stable, traditional communities and traditional mores, and the impoverishment and political disengagement of the middle class? Doesn't a mixed economy like the one we got during the New Deal work effectively to protect and promote a flourishing middle class? Which model, Obama's New Deal version 2 or Levin's Social Darwinism version 2, promotes the American Dream you think is healthiest for America?
The crudity of people like Levin's thinking is impossible to take seriously, but I think there are legitimate concerns about top-down statism that I want to talk about going forward. We are in a very interesting transition period, and it's important that Dems don't screw it up to leave room for the Levin types to make a comeback.
The polarizing NRO types will be screaming socialism when the healthcare issue becomes the topic du jour. The one thing Obama has going for him is that corporate America, as Wal-Mart has shown, has no problem using the government dole if it lowers its overhead. And corporate America is sick of paying outrageously volatile insurance premiums. Corporate America's desire for a solution is far more important for getting things done than what the ideologues at National Review think.
The trick will be to avoid a debate dominated by polarized thinking and to find a way to live in the tension between the local, free individual and the massive presence of the postmodern state. It's not either/or, and finding the middle way is the only way forward. I still have hopes that Obama might be the man of the hour in helping us finding that way.